Money to burn, anyone?- Library of Mu

Library of Mu record:
Title: Money to burn, anyone?
Date: 07 November, 1995
Journal: Guardian (G2)
Author: Adam Sweeting
Type of resource: Reviews
Status: original
No. views: 2011
Description: Poor review of the Omnibus program; he doesn't really get it.


Money to burn, anyone?

By Adam Sweeting (07 November, 1995, Guardian (G2))

While people have been known to contemplate suicide after forgetting to purchase what would have been a winning lottery ticket, carefree art-terrorists the K Foundation burned a million pounds last year in a shed on a tiny Scottish island, and now seem to have no idea why they did it.

'Foundation Course In Art' (Omnibus, BBC1) held up a mirror to the oblique strategies and conceptual confusion which seem, in equal measure, to drive the K Foundation, and discovered two bewildered, unhappy men.

The K Foundation are Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, who used to be the pop duo KLF. Having outwitted the music industry by creating outrageous chartbusters like 3am Eternal and Justified and Ancient and walking away with a handsome profit, Cauty and Drummond now seem to have outwitted themselves by getting sucked into a cerebral black hole, where the distinctions between good art, bad art, ironic gesture and irreversible act have disappeared. Seeking, apparently, to poke a stick in the eye of the art establishment, The K Foundation found they have committed a vastly expensive publicity stunt which afforded them little publicity.

Kevin Hull's film mooched along behind the disconsolate conceptualists as they wondered what to do with their grandiloquent gesture. Their options seemed limited. One gallery thought it might be able to sell the suitcase containing charred £50 notes - "this fantastic iconoclastic gesture!" - for £1,000. At the In The City music-biz backslapathon, Drummond/Cauty showed a film of the money-burning stunt, then answered questions from a listless audience.

Snag is, the K men (sic.) have always dealt in myth and sown a trail of confusion, so nobody quite believes they really burned the money. And if they did, they must be nuts. Confucius says: Aston Martin dealer will not accept suitcase full of ash as down payment.



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